The Summer Palace
by justrumbelledearie
Summary: Spinner!Rum returns home from the Second Ogre War disfigured and lame. An AU in which Belle & Rumplestiltskin are clandestine childhood sweethearts, and love heals all wounds.


The trellis will hold. Belle is nearly certain of it.

It has held these past thirteen summers, adorned by blooming roses and creeping vines. The wooden slats haven't yet given way to rot, though they will likely leave splinters in her palms, and the barbed thorns will surely scratch her ankles.

Just as they did last year.

Just as they have done every year since the Lady Mirabelle French of the Marchlands first decided her birthday would best be celebrated amidst her father's serfs and merchants, not apart from them. At the tender age of seven, Belle first stretched her dainty foot out of this high, open window and grabbed hold of the sturdy, wooden trellis.

Just as she is grasping it now—though tonight she is twenty and weighs four stone more than she did as a child.

No matter; the trellis _will_ hold, even with the added weight of her knapsack, and perhaps—_oh, please, let it be so!_—perhaps _this_ will be the year that Rumplestiltskin returns to her.

Belle finds her footing within the thick foliage and takes one cautious, downwards step, then another, and another. Her long skirt—practical blue muslin, good for traveling—is tied up around her knees.

The roses are at the very peak of their beauty, and their honeyed fragrance is almost overpowering. When Belle at last reaches solid ground, she pauses to pluck two tight, pink buds from the trellis.

A birthday present for her beloved.

_If_ he's waiting.

_If_ he'll have them.

Belle unties her skirt, shakes out the wrinkles and the leaves, and reaches into her traveling pack for a cloak.

Her thoughts circle back to the first time she made this journey: out of her window at dusk, across the wide lawn, through the forest, hastening toward the small village that borders her father's summer palace.

She'd been so _young_ then—and not a little headstrong—wanting to see the carnival _up close,_ not from a bench upon a high dais or from the plush seat of her father's carriage.

After all, it was _her_ birthday celebration.

Also, _also_—she'd been so eager to find the pale little boy, the one who had spun straw into gold. She'd watched him earlier that day from her carriage window, his fingers moving so quickly that they were nothing more than a blur, his wheel and the floor of his carnival stall festooned with glimmering thread. Belle wanted to tell him she had deduced the gimmick behind his charming 'magic.'

She also wanted to see if she could coax a smile from his sweetly pensive, down-turned lips.

The pale boy was still standing in the small stall where Belle had last seen him, packing away his treadle and bobbins. He looked very tired.

_"I think I know how you do it," she had said, walking over to stand beside him, feeling wonderfully bold and clever._

_Belle had reached out and grasped his sleeve. The brown fabric was thin and coarse, but clean._

_"You keep your golden thread hidden up…here, and you feed it out beneath your hand onto the hooked part of your spinning wheel!"_

_Sure enough, she had felt a second bobbin affixed to his skinny arm beneath his shirtsleeve. The boy had stared hard at her hand where it rested upon his forearm and quietly replied, "It's called a flyer…"_

_Then he'd glanced up at her face._

_"My lady!" he'd exclaimed, dropping swiftly to one knee and dirtying his patched, threadbare pants in the dust. With his head bowed, his straw-colored hair fell forward into his eyes. _

_"Oh, no—please don't," she'd whispered, glancing around and tugging him back up to his feet, "Today is my birthday, and you'll ruin all the fun if people discover I'm here."_

_He'd straightened up slowly and smiled at her, brushing off his pant leg. His eyes were a lovely, warm shade of brown. "Yes, of course I know it's your birthday, my lady. Happy birthday. Today is my birthday as well."_

_"Really?" she'd laughed. "Well then, whyever are you working? Let's go and have ourselves a bit of fun! What is your name?" _

_"It's Rumplestiltskin, my lady."_

_"That's quite a mouthful," she'd observed, sounding it out in her head._

_"Well, so is yours," Rumplestiltskin replied, his eyebrows arched. "Lady Mirabelle French of the Marchlands."_

_"You may call me Belle."_

_"Call me Rumple."_

Every year since, they've met at his stall on the night of their shared birthday to explore the carnival and the surrounding countryside.

Rumple brings her a piece of his handiwork as a present: a cloth doll, an embroidered pillow, a sketch of the village. Belle writes out lengthy, intricate stories, just for him, illustrated by her own hand and carefully stitched together. They cherish these little gifts above any of their other possessions.

Belle spends only a scant few weeks at her father's summer palace each June, but they are among the happiest weeks of her life. _Here_ she sees her dearest friend. _Here_ she feels freer and lighter than she ever thought possible—not with the weight of her father's territories pressing down upon her young shoulders.

Oh,_ but then,_ four summers back—_the_ _Ogre War._

Rumple was waiting for her in his stall as always, his spinning wheel already packed away. He had finally grown a bit taller than her, though not by much. There were dark circles beneath his downcast eyes, and his patched clothes hung looser than she'd ever seen them.

_"It came, Belle. My conscription letter." He'd held it out for her to see, unable to meet her startled gaze. "I leave tomorrow at first light."_

_And—though she blushes to think of it now, for she is not usually given to such outbursts—Belle had taken the sheet of parchment in her trembling hands and begun to weep over it, shaking her head._

_"Oh, Rumple—!"_

_He had swallowed and stared hard at the dirt on the floor of his stall, then sighed and stepped closer, carefully brushing away her tears with his callused thumbs._

_"Please, Belle—please no crying. Just…one last evening? Something beautiful to remember when…" He had broken off and looked away from her wet face, swallowing several times, so she took his rough hands in hers and did as he asked, quelling her little sobs._

_They walked over the torchlit fairgrounds together, arms linked, and exchanged their presents as always. Another homemade book for him, and a sketch of his plain, dear face for her, with these words written on the back in a halting, uneven scrawl: "For Belle, on our birthday." _

_Of course, it was impossible to sleep that night, and they couldn't bear to separate until it was inevitable. Rumple had led her to a deserted hayloft at the edge of the village, and they'd lain awake in the straw, whispering together about an imaginary future: they would manage an inn, tucked away in some far off, seaside town. He'd play chef and she'd play maid, and they'd have no less than six children to dote upon them in their old age._

_While they whispered, she'd drawn shapes with her fingertip on the palm of his hand: hearts and crosses and the letters of their names. It was unthinkable that this dear, creased palm would soon be carrying a sword into battle._

_When the morning sun began to shine through slats of the barn, Rumple had twined his fingers through hers and whispered, "If only things were different from what they are, Belle…"_

_And she had finally found her courage._

_Belle had leaned forward, her blue eyes wide, her heart beating wildly, and gently pressed her lips against the soft skin of his cheek. He had only just begun to grow whiskers, and Belle felt them prickle and tickle beneath the fingers she had lifted to trace his jawline._

_Rumple went stock-still for a frightening moment, then heaved a little breath and pressed their entwined fingers to his violently pounding heart. He had hungrily tilted his head, swiftly captured her lips, and kissed her back as though he never again expected to have the chance._

_When they parted, after mingling tears and sharing the same breath, he had sworn he could now die a happy man, and she had sobbed into her skirt when he kissed her palm and left her to go and meet his regiment._

And it has now been four birthdays without him. Four years of not knowing if her first and only love is alive or dead in some field, far from home, a feast for the crows.

She has only this one, last chance. Tonight Belle will take her little knapsack and her favorite horse and the clothes on her back and begin a new, anonymous life, somewhere far from the Marchlands.

And if by some miracle Rumplestiltskin _is_ waiting, she plans to go down on her knees, dirty her blue traveling skirt, and beg him to come with her.

Her horse is waiting just beyond the treeline, his leather reins tied loosely to a low branch. Belle pauses to gently greet him, dipping her forehead and rubbing it against the white velvet of his muzzle.

"It's time to go, César," she croons and smooths a hand down his arched, snowy neck. Placing her slipper in the stirrup, Belle grasps the polished saddle, and swings herself up.

"Ready for a bit of an adventure?" she asks the horse, then clucks her tongue, lightly kicks her heels, and they set out at a canter toward the hayloft at the edge of the village.

Rumple wasn't in his stall this afternoon, but perhaps—_oh please, perhaps_—he'll be waiting for her at their barn.

There is no movement when Belle approaches the little clearing by the hayloft where they said their last goodbyes. No lantern illuminates the tumble-down outbuilding, though the moon is shining brightly enough to cast shadows. Undeterred, she slides down off of César's back and enters the silent barn.

All is still and dark. A shaft of moonlight falls upon the pile of hay where their young lips touched for the first time four years ago. The hayloft appears to be deserted.

Her heart tastes bitter within her throat.

Belle turns to go. She presses a hand to her stomach, thinking that perhaps she'll be sick. Is it possible to fall ill from only love and disappointment? The journey ahead of her now seems impossibly long and very, very lonely.

But then—_a voice!_

_His _voice, sounded hoarse and strange, calling her name from some unseen corner of the hayloft: _"Belle…"_

_"Rumple—!"_ She spins around, craning her neck this way and that, trying to make out where he is hiding.

Oh, _there!_ Off in a far corner, away from the light: an indistinct figure in a dark cloak.

The cloak's hood is pulled so low that Belle cannot see his features, but she knows the set of his narrow shoulders and recognizes those pale, careworn hands—now raised in front of him, motioning for her to stay back.

_"I had to see you—"_ he begins, just as she says, "I hoped I would find you—"

They both fall silent, and Rumplestiltskin takes a halting, cautious step toward her from the shadows, his hands still outstretched. Whether as an entreaty or a warning gesture, it is impossible to say.

Belle notices that he limps.

"Rumple, you're hurt!" She hastily crosses the distance between them, even as he tries to wave her off.

"No! It's an…old injury. Months old. It simply didn't…heal properly."

She reaches for him, but he holds her back firmly by the shoulder with one outstretched arm, and she begins to cry from the shock of it: the strangeness of seeing him and still being kept away. Will she always lose her composure when she is near Rumplestiltskin? Is this part of being in love?

"Why are you wearing that cloak?" he asks, his voice muffled beneath his own dark hood. He squeezes her trembling shoulder as if he cannot quite believe she is corporal and truly standing in front of him.

"You ought to answer the same question, Rumple," she replies, sniffing, "Why are you hiding your face? Why are you acting so strangely?" She dashes a tear from her cheek with the heal of her hand.

He makes no reply, but lowers his stiff, straight arm, releasing her.

Belle steps quickly closer, taking up his hands in hers and explaining: "It's a traveling cloak. I'm leaving the Marchlands—_tonight._ Now. Papa has promised my hand in marriage to a man I cannot love and who cannot love me, and the ceremony is set for tomorrow morning…"

She savors the way his hands convulsively grasp hers, hearing these words. He may act aloof and strange, but his hands give him away.

She reaches for him again, trying to push back the hood, but he ducks his head and flinches away, limping a few steps off.

"Please Rumple—at least come and sit beside me," Belle entreats, thinking it must hurt him to stand on a leg that he cannot properly walk upon. "Come and sit, and I'll tell you everything."

He hesitates for a long moment, then relents and slowly hobbles over. They sit side-by-side in the hay, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed low. Belle stares at his dark silhouette and explains, "I was promised to my cousin when I reached my majority, three years ago. It's a strategic alliance meant to shore up Papa's authority over the territories. Gaston is a good man. Honorable, brave…"

"Handsome?" Rumplestiltskin interjects, and she nods.

"Yes, handsome. Almost strikingly so. The castle maids have been in an uproar ever since he arrived at the palace. But—what I cannot understand is how no one but me has guessed his secret…"

Belle swallows, feeling suddenly uncertain if she should be breaking her cousin's confidence with _this_ man, who feels almost a stranger to her with his covered face and his dark, dusty cloak.

"Like me, Gaston has already given his heart away—it belongs to a young man in Papa's court. I've pressed him to speak out, but he isn't ready yet. He's a brave man, but…"

Belle leaves off, relieved when Rumple expresses no shock, simply finishes her thought, "…but not brave _enough."_

"Not yet," Belle agrees, "but he will be, one day. His young man possesses a keen intelligence and a strategic mind. They will rule well together. But…I won't sacrifice my own happiness in order to become their screen. Gaston doesn't wish it either. He'd rather play the role of jilted bridegroom until he can gather his courage. He has given me back a large portion of my dowry so that I may leave him at the alter tomorrow and begin a new life somewhere else—a life I hope to live with _you,_ Rumple."

Reaching into her cloak pocket, Belle pulls out the two small rosebuds. Her cheeks are as pink as the flowers in her palm.

"I've only ever loved one man," she says, moving to crouch on both knees in front of him, "and that is _you,_ Rumplestiltskin. When I thought you might have died on the battlefield, my heart went into the grave with you. But now—be my husband? Come away, and start a new life with me—in our seaside town?

He bows his head lower, as if hearing this loving declaration is physically painful, and twists the trunk of his body away from her.

"I _was_ in the grave, Belle…" he says, so softly she can barely make out the words. "But…_I came back to you._ I hardly stopped on the road—it was as if the wolves were at my back, and yet…"

He struggles to his feet and limps away from her, swaying as if he might fall.

"Not _all_ of me came back; I haven't returned to you whole. I'm not the same man from before, and…I _cannot_ let you yoke yourself to—I only wanted to see you…just this one, last time…"

"But I don't understand, Rumple!" she pleads, rising and going after him, still holding out her gift of flowers.

"You know that the war goes on and on. They'll take any halfway-abled man they can get their hands on. _I_ was sent home because I'm of no use to anyone now. I'm of no use to _you, _Belle. I'll show you, but please, please don't be afraid. I couldn't bear it."

He exhales heavily, then slowly pushes back his hood.

She catches her breath at the sight of his ruined face.

Some fearsome beast has sunk its claws deep into her dear love's skull and drug them downwards to his chin. One of his lovely, brown eyes is missing on the right side, and the skin surrounding the roughly stitched eye socket is nothing more than a tangled mass of scar tissue. The lobe of his right ear is gone, and there are angry, red trenches from his right temple to his misshapen jawbone.

_"Rumple—!" _she says, bringing both hands to her mouth and dropping the buds on the barn floor.

"This too…" he tells her quietly, and lifts the bottom of his dirty cloak to reveal a battered, wooden leg—his right leg, the foot he used to work his spinning wheel's treadle.

"I was lucky to have escaped with my life, but there are times when—when I don't feel it…" he says, turning away and wrapping his arms around himself for a moment before reaching upwards to tug the hood back down over his ruined face.

"Did you think," Belle asks, moving closer and laying a hand upon his stooped shoulder, "that I wouldn't want a life with you because you've been injured on the battlefield? Did you think I would care about a wooden leg? You're _alive,_ Rumple! I feel as if I've been frozen for these past four years, and suddenly I can _breathe_ again!"

He draws a deep, shuddering breath but does not turn around.

"We'll be stared at everywhere we go, Belle…" he whispers. "I've lost my livelihood…"

"Let them stare!" she exclaims, and her hand travels upwards to touch the back of his head through the thin material of his cloak. He shivers.

"I'll run a sword through anyone who dares insult you! And a man is much more than the work that he does…"

She then reaches both hands around him to where the cloak fastens at his neck. She'll _show_ him how little she cares about crookedness in the features of the man that she loves!

His breath comes fast and shallow while her determined fingers begin to work the little cloak fastener loose, and when the dusty covering falls to the barn floor and pools around his ankles, he cries out softly, his body shaking. His clothing is old and unwashed and torn.

"Belle, you _cannot_ want…"

"I've _always_ wanted," she whispers fiercely, "I've wanted you since I was old enough to know what wanting was…"

She places a warm hand upon his hipbone and exerts a gentle pressure to turn him round to face her. His single brown eye is gleaming within his twisted face, and it breaks her heart wide open to see the naked hope rekindled there.

Rumplestiltskin's hair is just the same as always: lank, blond straw falling forward over his marred forehead. She brushes it back, then draws his head down to rest against hers, closing the distance between their two bodies and fitting their hips together.

A violent shudder goes through him, and he doesn't resist when she rises on tiptoe and brushes her parted lips over his.

It's a shy, tender greeting, his only eye flickering shut and his mouth remaining stiff and closed, but she waits, her hands sinking to his lower back, moving in gentle, reassuring strokes, her soft lips moving over his until he's breathing hard enough that he _must_ open his mouth, and Belle is able to deepen their kiss.

She remembers this feeling from before—the way the taste of him makes her insides twist and churn. She tries to reach _more_ of him with her eager tongue, and he sways on his feet, his bony shoulders rapidly rising and falling, his hands clenched into tight, white fists against his thighs.

Belle takes him by the arm, careful not to unbalance him, and leads him—him, her dear, sweet love—toward the high, moonlit pile of hay. It's as though a madness has taken root in her. She wants to seal their fate _here_ and _now_ and banish any doubt that he will always, forever be what she wants.

She unties her long traveling cloak and spreads it out upon the hay, blushing and feeling feverish.

There can be no doubt about her intentions now.

"Lie down with me, love, like we did before," she whispers, and his good leg gives way, ungracefully dropping him to one knee before he carefully stretches himself out upon the soft fabric of her cloak. Belle kneels beside him, her fingers reaching out to trace the ravaged lines of his face.

_"Belle,"_ he groans, and she snatches her hand back, whispering apologies.

"Does it still hurt, Rumple?"

"No—only when I catch sight of it in a mirror…no, that felt—_it felt so good to be touched_…I frightened so many people on the road…and I never thought that you would want to…oh, that feels…"

She strokes his ruined face until he's moaning, unable to bite back the breathy sounds, and when she bends down to recapture his lips, he clings to her and loses himself in it completely, stroking his hot tongue over hers and seeking out the sweetly delicate places within her mouth.

By the time they part to catch their breath, Belle is sprawled atop him, and Rumple is looking utterly undone, the flesh of the unspoiled side of his face flushed and damp.

His sex has hardened between them, and the hot, rigid length of it is pressed against her inner thigh through her thin, muslin skirt. The new sensation—and his searing, ragged breath against her sensitive ear—has her feeling dizzy and tightly coiled, heat spreading from her lower belly to her trembling limbs.

_He wants her, he wants her badly, and she's going to show him how much she desires him, her sweet Rumple, her only love…_

Belle reaches for the laces to his patched, dusty britches, and he arches his neck, gasping while she struggles to work them loose.

"Love, I haven't…I don't…" he pants, twisting beneath her.

"Nor have I," she confesses, but her daring fingers slip below his waistband anyhow, bravely exploring the short, delicate curls she finds there, so much like her own. He's shaking by the time her knuckles graze against the smooth, hot length of him. It's pressed urgently upwards against his clothing, tenting his thin britches.

Rumple hisses—then pants—when she touches him deliberately, running her fingertips all along his rigid, pulsing flesh. He grips her slender arms tightly enough to bruise and struggles to lift his hips and meet her tentative explorations.

"Oh, Belle…thank y—_please, yes, don't stop…"_

He ceases to make any sense at all once she grasps him firmly, just groans and babbles and gasps her name, scrambling frantically at her wrinkled skirt, desperate to tug it upwards.

She knows enough from her books and her maids' whispered gossip to know what it is he's after, so Belle kisses him deeply and works on easing his clothing down over his lean, arched hips.

It's difficult because he cannot keep still, just rocks and writhes upward, trying to grind out her name from between his tightly clenched teeth.

Rumplestiltskin's hot, hardness reveals itself once she's made some progress with his clothing, and it takes her breath away. _So large, and yet it's meant to go inside her._

His kisses give her courage, though, and Belle helps his struggling, grasping hands to lift her skirt and carefully settles a knee on either side of him.

_"Oh please…"_ he manages to say, _"Yes…please, Belle—!"_

With exquisite slowness, she eases her fevered, aching core over the wide, blunt tip of him, and he claws and grips at the hay, struggling to stay still for her, begging over and over: _"Please! Oh, please…oh please…oh please…!"_

There is an unexpected dampness between her legs that helps them along, and she eases onto him slowly, cautiously, until—_it's scarcely to be believed_—he is fully within her, and she is able to rock forward slowly, exquisitely, deliberately against his pelvis.

It's _glorious._

It's like rocking against her goose down pillow in bed, except Rumple is firmer and fills up her empty, aching hollowness, and—without knowing exactly how—she finds a sweet, steady rhythm that's bringing her closer and closer to a release she's only ever experienced alone.

Beneath her, his eye is closed, his neck is arched, his already ravaged face is contorted, and he's crying out and gripping her naked thighs, begging, begging, begging: _"Belle!"_

She allows her own head to fall back and the sweet release steals up upon her slowly, building into deep waves of pleasure that travel from her hot core to her shaking limbs, wringing soft cries from her open mouth.

Below, Rumplestiltskin is finding his own release, nearly sobbing from the sweet relief of it.

Belle at last slumps forward onto the coarse cloth that covers his chest and rubs her cheek against it. Sated. Exhausted. _Whole. _He is still within her, and she never wants to lose this sweet feeling of being joined.

When she has at last caught her breath, she lifts her head and tells him: "I've loved since that first day. Since the very first day, Rumple…"

He kisses the crown of her head. "And I you, since we were children. Always, Belle."

"We must leave soon," she says when he slips from her, sighing. "They'll come searching as soon as they discover I've gone. Gaston will try to lead them in the wrong direction, but, still, we should go…"

He agrees weakly, his arms limp around her back. Reluctantly, they rise, readjust their clothing, fasten their cloaks, then walk on unsteady legs out of the barn into the moonlit night. He pauses to retrieve her flowers, tucking them into a pocket.

Belle helps him onto César, then climbs up behind and wraps an arm around his slender waist.

"We'll need to ride through the night," she apologizes. "You must be so tired from the road. Sleep a little, love."

"Where is it we're headed, Belle?" he asks fondly, leaning back against her. She rests her cheek against his back.

"I'll wake you when we reach the coast," she promises. "As soon as I see the ocean."


End file.
